But it was not the events after the photos were posted that gave Mr. Martin away. It was everything that happened before.
It started the previous spring, with that evil boy from Hunter’s school that Emma had sex with. Emma did not speak to Hunter for weeks after that incident, because Hunter called her a whore and laughed at her. But this didn’t last long.
Hunter missed Emma. He missed snuggling with her on the couch watching scary movies and he missed getting high with her and he missed sneaking out with her to go to parties at the beach. He missed her smiling at him and flipping her hair and telling him things about her life. So when she came back from her summer program, Hunter made nice with her and they went back to their usual fighting but then getting high and laughing and snuggling on the couch. That didn’t last long either.
In early August, Emma started dating a new boy from our club. Hunter became insane with jealousy again. He was as cruel as he had ever been. He did lots of small, petty things like stealing all her underwear and hiding her phone so she couldn’t find it. But the worst part was how he just kept calling her a whore. Good morning, whore. How was the movie, whore? Lose your phone again, whore?
My mother did little to help. Every time she spoke to Mr. Martin about it, he got angry with her because he felt like she was criticizing his son. That’s what he said. But he was also angry with Emma for hurting his son, and for the way she made them both feel, which was wrong for both of them but especially for Mr. Martin.
One night late that summer, Emma came home from a party she’d gone to with that new boyfriend. Hunter was waiting for her. You’re such a little whore! he said. She ignored him and started to walk upstairs. Hunter followed her. Get away from me, loser! she said. But he didn’t. He followed her to the upstairs hallway and pushed her against the wall so hard that one of Mrs. Martin’s framed pictures crashed to the ground. He used his forearm to press into her chest and then stuck his hand down her pants. Is that what you let him do to you? Huh? Like this?
Emma just stared at him. I was standing in my doorway, frozen. It was such a strange and scary thing to see, but somehow Emma was not afraid. I could tell by her expression. She was defiant. He could put his hand in her pants. He could even kiss her and stick his tongue in her mouth. It wouldn’t matter. Emma had power over Hunter and she was never going to give it up by letting him have her. She was going to use it to torture him.
The next day, Emma was in her bedroom. She was getting dressed for another party and wouldn’t let me in to watch her. She said she wanted her privacy and that I was being a pest. Mr. Martin was driving her because our mother was at a charity function.
I heard Mr. Martin call her name from the bottom of the stairs. Emma did not respond. This made me curious, so I turned off my music and listened. Footsteps bounding up the stairs. An other shout for Emma from down the hall. A knock on her door. The door opening. Then silence.
Very softly, I opened my door. Mr. Martin had disappeared inside Emma’s room. It was silent in that room for a moment, and then Mr. Martin walked out, a little dazed. He looked at me standing in the hall. He looked the other way, then back at me. His phone was in his hand. Shame was on his face.
Tell your sister to hurry up.
I walked to Emma’s room and found her smiling in front of her mirror. She was wearing a sundress with spaghetti straps and Dr. Scholl’s on her feet. Her long hair was straight from her iron, and her lips were bright, bright red and shiny with gloss. Her face was flushed.
This is exactly how she looked in the pictures that got posted on the Internet—the dress, the hair, the makeup and the room. In one of the pictures, she had dropped the top part of the dress to expose her breasts. Of course, when I saw the pictures, unlike everyone else, I knew the moment they had been taken. And I knew who had taken them.
Emma never told me what happened, but I imagine it was something like this: She was mad at Hunter for putting his hand down her pants and calling her a whore all summer. She lured Mr. Martin to her room and probably asked him to take a picture of her to post on Instagram or something equally innocent. Then she dropped the dress. And Mr. Martin was tested. Finally, after all these years of watching her and envying his son for being so close to her, she was his. Just for a moment. And rather than walk away, he snapped one last picture that he would save to his phone so he could remember the moment and satisfy his urges. It’s a slippery slope, giving in to a wanting as strong as his. Even if you just give in a little.
I concluded as well that Mr. Martin would never have posted those pictures online. It served no purpose for him, and the site they went to was nothing any grown-ups had heard of.
So, I don’t know when she did it, but Emma must have told Hunter about the pictures and Mr. Martin. And Hunter retaliated by finding them and posting them online. It was all-out war, and that war would rage in our house for two more years. Until the night we disappeared.
*
It was on the third night of my return that Witt came to visit. I decided to stay with my father that night. I thought it would be a relief, but he was not doing very well and I felt myself being pulled into his emotional storm.
I know Dr. Winter spoke to him about how to speak to me. She told him not to be overly emotional when he asked me questions about my time on the island, not to sound judgmental. My father had a lot of trouble with this. I know he tried. I could see the strain in his entire body as he held back his questions, held in his agony for his daughters. The veins that ran down the sides of his forehead, and his neck, and up his forearms were popping out from beneath his skin as we sat at the dining room table eating takeout.
“You must have missed Chinese food. It was always your favorite.”
I told him that I had missed it very much.
“What about television? Did you get to watch any of your favorite shows? Did you see any movies?”
I told him some of the movies and things we watched. We had a satellite dish, and it seemed like it was not legal, because it didn’t work all the time. I asked him if he had seen the same shows or movies.
Something about this made my father cry and leave the room. Actually, he asked me if I minded if he left the room because he had to cry. He said he would go and get us some ice cream. I thought that was considerate. But at the same time, I was mad at him. I wanted him to be stronger.
I could see Witt was barely tolerating him, the way he always did. His lack of respect for him would never go away, and I thought it was odd that this bothered my father less than Mrs. Martin choosing Mr. Martin and leaving him. But I suppose it all goes back to one of Mrs. Martin’s lessons about how everyone wants what they can’t have. I never want to want anything after seeing the damage wanting brings.